


Origins

by knightswhosay



Series: Superhero AU [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Multi, superhero au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2066358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightswhosay/pseuds/knightswhosay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The origins of the characters in what will hopefully turn into a full-fledged superhero au.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Origins

**Author's Note:**

> These aren't going to be in chronological order, although since each of these origins are mostly self-contained, it won't matter. That being said, I am starting with Levi's, because of the ones I've written it is the earliest in chronological order. I think the next one I post will be Ymir's and/or Historia's but I'm not sure.
> 
> Also, different chapters will be written in different POVs because I'm a creative writing student, dammit, so I don't feel as if I can write every fanfiction in third-person past as much as I sometimes want to. But since each chapter is independent of one-another, it shouldn't be too jarring. I hope.

You were twelve when you first squashed a lizard in your hand. It popped like a balloon and you felt its guts spray against you, wet and slimy. You unclenched your hand; it was red and brown and gross and you rushed inside to wash your hand. You stayed at the sink for at least five minutes. Your mother asked if you were okay. _Fine_ you said.

You started crushing glasses in your grasp, bleeding from the cuts, and got overly familiar with bar soap and butterfly band-aids. You sometimes heard your parents talking late into the night, talking about how teenagers were inherently clumsy and unused to their body, but how they had no idea it was to this extent.

At thirteen, you wanted to join your middle school’s soccer team, so your parents took you to a doctor to get a physical. This doctor told your family something that your old family doctor never bothered to: despite your thin build and your less-than-impressive musculature, you had the strength of an athletic twenty-one-year-old, and perfect vision to boot. Needless to say, when you demonstrated this strength during soccer try-outs, you got on the team, although that didn’t stop the other boys from teasing you for being the shortest person on the team.

You kept on getting stronger. In eighth grade, you kicked the soccer ball so hard that it broke when it hit the metal side of the goal. Your coach advised that you join the high school varsity team.

Really, it wasn’t a good idea. The players were closer to your level, but the juniors and seniors resented having a middle schooler on their team, especially a middle-schooler who was only five feet tall, so they cornered you in the locker room after practice. You were tired about people teasing you for height. You punched the first guy in the face and probably broke his nose; at the very least, your hand had come away bloody. The next guy grabbed your shoulders and shoved you into the lockers behind you. You pushed him off and threw him against the opposite row of lockers, so hard that the lockers dented and the high schooler crumpled to the ground. The two other boys collected the fallen comrades and stared at you like you had suddenly grown horns, and you stared down at your hands, still covered with the first boy’s blood.

That night, your parents received a phone call from your coach and discussed in low voices that you could nonetheless hear from your room whether they should take you at of school and home-school you.

You parents had always told you you were special. You thought, maybe you were just too special.

Your parents tried different things to help you: sending you to special doctors, which you hated, trying more traditional medicinal treatments, which didn’t work. They even sent you to various martial arts classes; you weren’t sure what they were trying to achieve there, but at least you learned how to end fights quicker, with less damage to the other party. You appreciated your parents’ efforts, but inside you knew it wouldn’t do any good: you were still getting stronger and fights would only increase when you went to high school.

One evening, you were walking home from practice like usual. You had managed not to get in any fights. It was May and hot and the air vibrated with cicadas. Then, you heard gun shots and a moment later, a figure wearing dark clothes and black domino mask turned the corner and started running toward you. “Run!” he yelled and you ran.

You looked back and saw that the strange man’s pursuer’s were gaining. They were charging down the road in black SUVs, AK-47s poking out of the windows. You wondered if you had been transported into an action movie. “There!” you pointed at the woods on your right, “my house is through there!” You turned and charged through the underbrush. He followed you.

You entered your house through your bedroom window, the figure still behind you. “Thanks kid,” the stranger said. His voice was light, almost as light as a girl’s, and his face, the part you could see, was free of wrinkles.

“You can’t be much older than me. Unless there’s something wrong with you and your balls still haven’t dropped.”

A comment like that would’ve normally earned you a cuff, but the stranger laughed. He sat down on your neatly made bed. “You got me there. Guess I’m only sixteen.”

“Fourteen. You some sort of terrorist?”

“No.”

“Are they?” You said, referring to people chasing this stranger.

“Look, kid, you shouldn’t be worrying about it. You shouldn’t of helped me really.”

“My name’s Levi. Use it.”

The stranger laughed again, throwing his head back. “Okay. Levi, do you know how to treat bullet wounds?”

“I…”

“I’ll give you instructions.” The stranger pulled off his shirt. He may have only been sixteen, but he had spectacular musculature, although his chest was marred with cuts and some sort of makeshift bandage on one of his sides. He pulled it away and you grimaced at all the blood. “I was lucky. It was only a graze, albeit a bad one.” The stranger listed a few items and you did your best to find them, creeping around the house so as to avoid your parents.

And so, you got a crash course in treating bullet wounds. When the graze was re-bandaged, the stranger pulled himself up in sitting position on your bed. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’ve probably ruined your bed.”

You looked down at the sheets and grimaced. They were covered in blood. You would have to throw them out. “It’s okay.”

The stranger grabbed his shirt and tugged it back over his head. “It was nice of you to help me, Levi, but I need to go.”

“But you’re hurt. It’d probably be better for you to spend the night here or something.”

The stranger sighed. “I’ve already put you in enough danger. Those men chasing me? Soon they’ll be coming around, searching houses for me. You better hope they don’t recognize you when they inevitably break in here.”

“Shouldn’t I just go with you then?”

“Levi,” he said, “you’re fourteen. You have family, a future.”

You snorted. “Yeah. I have a family. A family that thinks I’m a freak, that’s scared of me.” You surveyed the room, looking for someway to demonstrate your strength. You walked over to your desk and picked up a pair of scissors, snapping them in half. You took one half and bent the metal over and over itself until it resembled some kind of curly q. Then you threw it at the wall and it embedded itself there a foot north of the stranger’s head. “Sometimes, I do that with people too.”

The stranger stared at him. You expected him to make some joke, something like kid, that was almost intimidating; gain half-a-foot and thirty pounds, and I’ll be scared. Instead, the stranger looked at him sadly, almost pityingly, which made you mad and impatient. “Well?” you demanded.

He stood up and walked toward you. “You actually have powers?”

“You don’t?”

He shook his head.

“I figured that any sixteen-year-old insane enough to get caught up in shit like that had to have powers.”

The stranger shrugged. “I’m strong for my age. And smart. But I don’t have any powers.” He laid a hand on your shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

You pushed it off. “I don’t want your pity. I just want to go with you.”

“You don’t even know what I do.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m a vigilante. I fight crime.”

“So?”

“It’s illegal. And it’s dangerous.”

“No shit. I still want to go.”

The stranger sighed. He walked over to your desk and grabbed a piece of paper and pen. “These are the coordinates for my base. Meet me there in a week. You won’t be coming back here, so bring a suitcase with anything you want. Nothing traceable.”

“I’ll be there.”

“You don’t have to.” The stranger walked over to the window and started climbing down. “Be careful, Levi.”

Alone, you surveyed your room. There was nothing here you would miss. Not the room, not the town, not the fights, not even your parents, not really. They would miss you, at first, but they would feel so much safer in the end. They could always adopt another kid, a normal kid.

You walked over to your closet and pulled out a suitcase.


End file.
